


Half Remembered Dreams

by SpeedyDoggo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Implied Murder, i guess, nothing too graphic it's like what they show on tv i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 09:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpeedyDoggo/pseuds/SpeedyDoggo
Summary: A collection of completed flash fiction that I'm posting here with a fresh start. They may or not be related. Who the hell knows.





	1. Alone

The city had never slept before. As he walked through the streets, only crows spoke. Neon lights, broken and warped, littered the sides of the streets. Cars that once shuttled people back and forth lay quiet, like great dead beasts put down after ages of service. It was like the city, with its regal skyscrapers and eternal lights, had finally rolled over and called it a day.  
Rats skittered around his feet, bold from the silence of the city. His footsteps sounded so loud, and for a moment he feared that he would wake the slumbering city. He remembered when the city was loud, when people scampered from place to place. There weren’t any people anymore, only the crows and the rats. Dogs and cats, long outliving their masters, fed upon them.  
His feet took him the way he’d always gone. Down the street he went, along the sidewalk. The body of a dog lay in his path, picked at by crows. He went around it, his shadow covering the corpse. The crows didn’t fly away, calm in the knowledge that they would be safe, even if he were starving. One cawed and flew to a nearby roof, gazing down at him with beady eyes.  
The city had only slept for a month, and already Mother Nature was working to reclaim it. The crow fluttered down next to him, bending a small sapling that had shot up with incredible speed. He ignored it, and it cawed in annoyance. He didn’t react, and the crow returned to the corpse.  
Vaguely, he wondered whether it would be the crows or the rats that would devour him. It would likely be both, he thought. First, the rats. The gnawing rats would tear his skin apart, leaving him open for the crows to pick at him. The dogs would have their share, ripping him apart. The cats would hunt the rodents who’d be fat with his flesh.  
He wished that there was someone out there waiting for him. The silence of humanity was overbearing. Simply the breathing of another human being would be heaven on Earth for him.  
His shadow was walking on his left now. Had he really been walking so long? He didn’t feel tired. He wasn’t breathing heavily, and he knew his heart was beating just fine.  
A crow flew above him again, circling as its brethren joined it. Was it really fitting, he thought, that carrion eaters had company and not him? The answer: no, no it wasn’t. His foot fell harder on the pavement, but the grass growing through kept his step nearly silent.  
The city, so full of life, wasn’t just resting. It hadn’t just fallen into a deep slumber. The city that never slept before would never again be awake. The city, it seemed, had simply died.  
Then he heard it.  
The sound of fire. The sound of a cheery, crackling fire. The sound filled him with warmth though it wasn’t even there. He broke into a run. A laugh, half-mad, escaped his lips as he dashed towards the sound of fire.  
Flowers decorating the cracked concrete were crushed beneath his feet, only to rebound moments later. Rats scrambled out of his way.  
He ran to the fire.  
An old building. A shop. The sign had fallen, and Mother Nature had erased its words. It smelt of smoke, not just wood smoke but the smoke of drugs. He shook his head, trying to get the smell out of his nose. He hoped that it wasn’t being used, that the smell of drugs was from the time when the city was loud.  
The door was broken. He pushed it in gently and called a greeting to the fire-maker. There was no reply. The fire, alone, danced and threw his shadow against the walls. Electricity arced with silent menace from a sputtering generator.  
He was alone. Slowly, he walked to the fire, planting himself in front of it.  
It faked life. It danced as if there was something to dance for. There was nothing. He sat down, staring at the fire. His heart was beating heavily now, slamming against his chest. He lifted his gaze, imagining for a moment that someone sat across from him.  
He drew his legs to his chest. They ached. He hadn’t realized earlier but now they ached. His breath came in gasps now, short, choking gasps that he couldn’t control. His face was wet.  
He looked up. His shadow made a crowd on the wall, his only companies. He yelled at them. Screamed at them. Cursed them for being silent just like the rest of the world.  
The fire still dancing. He threw dirt on it, kicked at it. Jumped away when his shoe caught fire. He put the flame down, standing beside the fire once more.  
He sat down, staring at the fire. It dried his face. He closed his eyes, laying on his side.  
He curled up next to the fire, which was still joyful in the face of death. He curled up under the stares of his shadows, which were still his silent companions.  
He curled up, and hoped that he would either wake with company, or not wake at all.


	2. Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love this one so much, okay.

I met her at a coffee shop. A small one, not Starbucks or anything, but a little coffee shop that you could walk right past and not notice. I went there often.  
I bought her a book. She seemed like a girl who’d appreciate it. I bought her a book and we sat down together to talk about it. It was Dean Koontz, I remember. _Phantoms _, or maybe it was _Darkfall_. It was Dean Koontz, that I know.__

____

_She’s screaming. There’s blood everywhere and she’s screaming._

We talked for some time. By the time we left, the coffee shop was about to close. I gave her my number, even though it was normal to ask for hers.  
She called me the next morning, on Saturday. Asked if I wanted to go out and get a drink, maybe see a movie. When I called the movie theater, it was closed. Repairs, I was told. I called her back and passed on the message, and she said we could go to the park. I agreed. I like the park. It’s very calm.

_I tell her to be quiet, to let my voice calm her down. She won’t listen._

We went to the park. I remember, there were a lot of dogs. She told me she wanted a dog, but her apartment was too small. I said she could get a small dog. She laughed and told me she was too busy for a dog.  
She was beautiful, you know. I wanted to write on and on about how beautiful she was, but I didn’t. We sat on a bench, in the park. I don’t remember what we talked about. Something lovely, I’m sure. It wasn’t just her body that was beautiful.

_I tell her that I love her, more than she could know. She shakes her head ‘no.’_

After the park, we had dinner. I took her to one of the fancier restaurants. I wasn’t rich, so I made sure not to take her anywhere I couldn’t afford. I think we had steak, or maybe chicken. I did. I remember joking about her being a vegetarian, so she ordered some meat to prove me wrong. I liked her smile.  
We talked about movies, I think. Yes, we did. I remember because she brought up _Grave Encounters._ That was a good movie. My favorite. After dinner, I asked if I could take her home, but she told me no. That was fine. I went home.

_There’s layers of pictures on the wall, each layer a different girl. Hers are the newest._

The next day, I called the theater. Asked if they were open. They were. I called her and asked if she wanted to see a movie later. She said yes, and I wrote about her until I could pick her up.  
I remember how beautiful she looked, even in her hoodie and jeans. She got into my car, and we went to the movies. We saw one that had just come out. _Gallows Hill_ , I think it was. She didn’t get too scared. She was strong. It only made her more beautiful.

_“Am I as beautiful as you are?” I ask her. She shakes her head, trembling in my arms._

After the movie, I convinced her to come to my house. We talked about the movie on the way there. She asked if I believed in demons or ghosts. I told her I didn’t. She asked me why. I couldn’t answer.  
When we got to my house, and she came in, she wanted to leave. I told her we were going to have fun. I don’t think she wanted to have fun. I know I did. So I had fun. I remember having fun.

_Her body is so beautiful, and so graceful even as she screams and cries. I’m still having fun._

I remember, her name was Irene.


	3. Forsaken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Might be related to Alone. I dunno.

The universe was howling, but only I knew it. Only I heard the lonesome call of existence. It beckoned to me, called to me to join it, but I didn’t. I stayed on my bench, looking over the cliffside. If I stepped over the cliff, I could join the universe.  
Sometimes I wanted to. When the emptiness got to be too much, I wanted to walk right off that cliff and join the universe. But I never did. Instead I looked over the cliff at the city below.  
Once upon a time, it was busy with light and sound, but now it was dark and silent. The only light came from the occasional fire that ravaged the city. There was nothing to stop the fire, not anymore.  
I stood from my bench and walked the overgrown path to my home. I’d once shared it with others, people who came from the mental hospitals and couldn’t live on their own yet. Now their bodies decayed in a pile, too much work for someone like me to deal with. I, an old man with a limp, would just have to suffer the smell.  
Or used to. I was used to it now. I couldn’t smell the corpses anymore. On occasion I would go out and use a rake to push a body off the pile and expose some underneath. Made it easier for the scavengers to feast, so it became a chore of mine. Check the crops, fill the bird feeder, make sure the scavengers were eating my former housemates.  
It was a terrible way to live, but it was the only way I had.  
I couldn’t remember how that day was, the day everyone died. I expect that it was just the halfway house and the city below that perished. Perhaps everywhere life had simply stopped. There was no wound upon my housemates when I found their bodies cooling, no poison that would kill them. They had just died, and I had remained. I sat on a couch, an old decrepit thing with springs poking right where they shouldn’t. I tapped my cane on my foot, watching the TV that would never sound again. Mostly I listened to the universe call. I had never heard it before the world stopped, and now it never shut up.  
I suppose I was okay with it. It made the most wondrous music.  
A dog howled somewhere in the distance, a tiresome bellow that no longer had a purpose. Storm clouds rumbled above. Would they pour down rain and water my crops for me, or set fire once again to the city below?  
It was growing dark, and shadows hid within the darkness. It was time for bed, for I had no power to turn on a light or even a candle to create a dancing flicker of light. I retired to my bed within the house, and readied myself to sleep.  
The next morning would go much the same as today. Check the crops, fill the bird feeder, maintain the corpse pile, then sit on the bench by the cliff and listen to the universe until it was time for bed. Maybe someday it would change, and instead of returning to my bed I would walk off the cliff and join the universe.  
I wasn’t sure.


End file.
